Author Spotlight Week -Toni Noel shares her passion for Romantic Suspense

For me reading a novel without a romance in it is like eating toast without jam. Just as the bread tastes flat, the book seems boring. I like to wonder will she get her man? And will they live long enough to catch the bad guys? For me, a good romance with a mysterious twist is like the icing on the cake. My two hours must be up. I'm hypoglycemic and have to eat every two hours, so it seems that at present all I can think about is food. But just let me get deeply involved in writing, whether the romance part or the suspense part, and I forget to eat. When my children were young, I stayed away from adult section of the library because I feared I'd get involved in a who-dun-it and burn the house down.

I never was a good cook, and the oft-repeated story of boiling eggs forgotten on my stove and exploding is not an exaggeration, but I diverse.

I once read about a well-known author who writes the necessary chapters of his mysteries, then shuffles the chapters around until he finds the best placement to tell the story. I don't think that's possible when a romance is part of the story. Writing romance requires a natural progression of events -- first look, first touch, hand to the head, etc, until the couple is fully and irrevocably involved, so writing a suspenseful story with a satisfying romance requires careful thought and planning. At least it does for me, but the resolution is so satisfying it is worth all the effort required.